The Shower
by aachannoichi
Summary: Get your minds out of the gutter! It's not that kinda story. Snake and his first bout of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after the Shadow Moses Incident.


The Shower  
  
The Shadow Moses mission was thankfully over and according to Colonel Campbell, it was a complete success. Meryl, his daughter was safe, and the helicopter brining in Dr. Emmerick had just arrived at the base where Snake was being held for post operation medical examination and debriefing. Snake made the request to stop his post mission medical exam and to go see Dr. Emmerick personally. He wanted to make sure those heartless bastards hadn't harmed him in any way. The poor man had been though enough over the past twenty-four hours. And much to Snake's astonishment the doctor was fine. Even more surprising was the news that they didn't hound him about Metal Gear Rex while in route to the base. All the loose ends were tied up, but there was still something wrong, he could feel it deep in the pit of his stomach.  
  
Walking back into the room where Campbell and the medial staff was, Snake sat back down on the bed and sighed. The doctors around him began to poke and prod him with various instruments, while Colonel Campbell looked on silently. This was beginning to get really annoying.  
  
"All of you get the hell outta here!" Snake demanded.  
  
With such an abrupt order the doctors paused for a moment and stared at Solid Snake oddly, but then slowly began to go back to their various duties.  
  
"Listen!" Snake yelled angrily. "I haven't had anytime alone since I got dragged into this mess yesterday. If you people don't get the hell outta here and give me some time to myself, I swear I'll kill everyone in this room."  
  
"Okay!" Colonel Campbell said shoving all the doctors out of the door. "Give the man some time alone."  
  
The doctors tried in vain to stop the Colonel from shoving them out of the room, to continue their medical examinations, but the Colonel wouldn't hear it. After the last doctor left the room, the Colonel gave Snake a quick smile and said, "I'll keep them busy until you are ready to see them."  
  
"Thanks Roy." Snake said graciously.  
  
With that Colonel Campbell closed the door and left Snake alone. It had been two hours since the copper carrying him and Meryl had returned. Once it had landed, they separated him and Meryl and took him into the medical facility to check all his vital signs. They were so quick to do everything that they hadn't even bothered to take off the sneaking suit when he arrived.  
  
Snake couldn't take wearing this thing anymore. It was uncomfortable as hell, plus it reeked of the pungent smell of gunpowder, sweat, and blood. This is what was causing him to feel so unsettled. He had to get out of the sneaking suit and take a shower. He had to wash away that disgusting smell of gunpowder and death. Unbuckling all the straps and hooks, Snake slowly slid out of the sneaking suit and let it lay on the floor in a heap. The temperate air felt good against his skin. It felt as if he could finally breathe again.  
  
Snake looked into a nearby mirror and saw all the cuts and bruises to his body. This was the price of war. More bruises. More pain. More scars that would never heal. And with each scar imprinted on his body it would be a constant reminder that he was the one to survive, but someone else would never again gaze at themselves in a mirror. A reminder that he was alive and all the people he had killed along the way were not.  
  
Snake walked away from the mirror and over to the door that was marked Shower, he cautiously opened it up, then he peered in for a moment to make sure no one was lurking around. But why would anyone be in here?  
  
Just some lingering paranoia from the mission, he thought.  
  
Snake stepped into the cold white room and walked over to the shower. He turned on the water. Snake checked the temperature once before pulling off his underwear and stepping into the lukewarm shower. Letting the tepid water run all over his body, Snake leaned against the cold white tile and sighed.  
  
"The next few weeks are going to be horrible." He muttered softly.  
  
Already, he could feel that remorseful side of him start to take over. No matter what he had been told in boot camp or what any military psychiatrist said to justify their actions, murder was wrong. Yes it was true, that given the situation, a solider kills their enemy without hesitation, that's the way it is in the battlefield. But when you return to normal civilian life, when you're alone, your thoughts always return to the faces of those who lost their lives at your hands.  
  
I wish I didn't feel things so deeply sometimes. He thought.  
  
Solid Snake ran his fingers though his dark brown hair and let the water run over his scalp. God that felt wonderful. Taking his hands out of his hair, he looked at them for a moment, and they were covered in a little blood. Snake saw the blood and his eyes widened, instantly he began to breathe faster and his mind became fuzzy.  
  
"Whichever wins, our battle does not end. The loser is freed from the battlefield, but the winner must remain there. And the survivor must live his life as a warrior until he dies." Big Boss's final words rang like a church bell in Snake mind suddenly.  
  
"Stop it!" Snake said trying to seize control of his emotions. "That's not true; I'm not just a warrior!"  
  
"There's a killer inside you. You don't have to deny it. We were created to be that way." Now Liquid's words flashed in his mind.  
  
"I'm not just a killer." He said franticly. "I'm not!"  
  
Snake grabbed the yellow soap that was sitting in the soap dish nearby, and he feverishly scrubbed the blood from off his hands. Trembling silently, he watched as the pinkish foam went down the drain. Slowly his breathing went back to normal, and the hazy feeling gradually subsided. Already he was beginning to feel the affects of post traumatic stress disorder. Yes, these next few weeks would indeed be the most difficult.  
  
Snake silently scrubbed his entire body with the sweet smelling yellow soap. He took care not to aggravate his wounds however. It was bad enough that the soap made the open lesions burn as the bubbles from the soap drizzled into them, but he didn't want to make matters worse by placing the soap directly on the cuts. While he was scrubbing, his mind began to once again drift back to the previous mission.  
  
"You're the same as us." He recalled Psycho Mantis's final words. "We have no past, no future. We live in the moment."  
  
As he recalled that maniacs final words, the soap slipped out of his hands and crashed onto the floor of the shower. The sound of the yellow soap hitting the floor hard caused Snake to snap of this new flashback. With a grumble, Snake bent over and picked up the soap and continued to scrub his body clean.  
  
Lifting up his left leg, he scrubbed his foot, making sure each toe was immaculate. While he was cleaning his other foot, he looked down for a moment and the white of the tub reminded him of the snowfield where he had fought Sniper Wolf. Such a beautiful woman, but Christ, was she deadly. The cut on his left cheek was a painful reminder of how brutal she was. But no matter how tough she was on the outside, she had a gentle heart on the inside. She could have easily killed Meryl, but she spared her life.  
  
"She was never my real target. I don't kill for sport."  
  
Once all parts of him were amply scrubbed, took the yellow soap and washed his hair with it. It was strange to have short hair again. His hair had been so mid-length for so long, that having a cool breeze past across his neck felt strange. He remembered the reason why he had grown his hair out to begin with. All those years in the military, they forced him to cut his hair short with the ridiculous crew cuts.  
  
"Ugh." He groaned out loud. "Those damn things always made my head look like a box."  
  
After he had left the marines to join Foxhound, he could have his hair in any style he wanted as long as it was still short. Following his retirement from Foxhound, while living life in the barren tundra of Twin Lakes, Alaska was when he vowed to never cut his hair short again.  
  
I guess I broke that vow. He thought with a smirk.  
  
But the whole reason he had cut his hair to begin with was because he wanted to look less like Liquid Snake.  
  
"Liquid." He muttered.  
  
Just the thought of Liquid sent a chill down his spine. He was the toughest opponent Snake had ever faced. He was far more determined then Big Boss, but they both had that glint of mad hilarity in their eyes. Although with Liquid, there was also a bit of cockiness in his eyes too. Thinking of that look Liquid had, that arrogant smug manor, it reminded Snake of himself. But, despite Liquid's inner inferiority complex, they were the same. The exact same. Right down to their DNA.  
  
"My twin brother." He sighed as he rinsed the soap out of his dark brown hair. "Another family member dead. Another link to my past that will never give me the answer that I've always been searching for."  
  
Snake let the soapy water run down his face and neck. He could feel the dirt wash way finally. His scalp was stinging from the soap. There must have been an open wound there. Probably from after the fight with Metal Gear Rex. That gust of hot metallic wind did knock back several yards, into a wall, and rendered him unconscious. That would have been more then enough to split his skull a little too. It's a damn miracle something like that didn't kill him. After all there was another who had lost their life to Metal Gear.  
  
"Snake, we're not tools of the government or anyone else. Fighting was the only thing, the only thing I was good at. But at least I always fought for what I believed in..."  
  
That should have been me. Snake thought remembering Fox's last words. That should have been me crushed underneath Rex, not you.  
  
A lone tear streamed out of Snake's hazel eyes and down his cheek. During the mission he didn't have time to grieve over the loss of his friend. Liquid by that point was out of control and had to be taken down. But now he was alone. No one could see him cry. Try as he would to make another tear come out, it would not happen. He had told Otacon that he didn't have anymore tears to shed. Perhaps it was true. Maybe he was too hardened from everything to show that emotion anymore.  
  
"Each step you take is paved with the corpses of your enemies. Their souls will haunt you forever. You shall have no peace..." Now Raven's words flashed though his mind.  
  
"I can't live like this anymore." He said. "I can stand what I've become."  
  
If I continue on like this, I'll end up just as crazy as Big Boss and Liquid. They both brought into that ultimate warrior bullshit, but not me. I want to change. I swore that I would change. And I will. I can't end up like them.  
  
Snake turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. He looked around for towel to dry off his dripping wet body. There was only one towel in the room and it looked really small, but he dried his hair and body off with it anyway. When he was finished drying, he wrapped the soft white towel around his waist. He was surprised that it actually the towel actually went around his waist with ease. Now that the previous smells of death and destruction were off his body, his nerves began to feel a lot more settled.  
  
Snake opened up the shower room door and went back out into the medical room. Walking over to the door that lead to the hallway, Snake opened it up and much to his surprise Colonel Campbell was standing guard at his door.  
  
"Are you okay now Snake?" Colonel Campbell asked.  
  
"It's David." He corrected. "And yes, I am feeling much better. You can call them in now."  
  
The Colonel smiled at David, while he closed the door and walked back into the room. Sitting down on the bed, David sighed. The next few days his mind would be riddled with hallucinations and flashbacks, but gradually the hallucinations would stop and the flashbacks would come less frequently. But this was going to be the day that he would change for the better. He didn't want to be a killer anymore. This hard-boiled soul who can't even grieve over the loss of a dear friend. That's no way for anyone live. It was time to change and for the better. That vow he made back on Shadow Moses would never be broken, ever.  
  
"It's time for me to look for a new path in life. A new purpose..."  
  
That vow would be something he would carry with him until the end of his life. 


End file.
